PSYC 104 Midterm 2

Person Perception

Perceiving other people as individuals, essential for social lifeTra

Trait Inferences

Judgments about others’ attributes, skills, etc., influencing expectations and interactions based on many types of information

Information for Inferences

Includes physical features, demographics, words, facial expressions, nonverbal behavior, context, direct interactions, observations, reputation

Fundamental Dimensions

inferences about others' traits from faces are primarily made along dominance, approachability (trustworthiness, warmth, morality), and youthfulness/attractiveness

Correlated Traits

Ratings like dominant/masculine or intelligent/trustworthy/attractive/feminine show correlations, suggesting higher-order perceptual dimensions

Reliability vs. Validity

Inferences based on looks can be reliable (people agree) but often not valid (accurate)

Trustworthiness from Faces:

People cannot actually guess people's trustworthiness from their faces

Base rates

Adjusting trust to the base rates of trustworthiness in the environment is better than relying on facial judgments. Relying on invalid cues leads to inefficient social decisions

Attractiveness Heuristic

The belief that “Beautiful is good”—- attractive people get treated more friendlier

Attractiveness Outcomes

Attractive people tend to have more friends and social skills but are not necessarily more intelligent and competent. They may become slightly higher in narcissism due to positive attention.

Causal Attributions

The explanation for a person’s behavior; determining the cause

When do causal attributions occur the most?

Most likely when behavior is negative, unexpected, or personally. Often made with thinking too hard.

Social Psychology Focus Shift

Moved from folk theories (they behave like that just because they’re_____) to explaining behavior via internal (dispositional) vs. external (situational) factors

Dispositional Attribution

Attributing behavior to the person's dispositions and traits. Also called internal or personal explanation

Situational Attribution

Attributing behavior to the environment or features of the situation. Also called external explanation

Misattribution

Mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source. This can involve attributing an effect to an incorrect cause, leading to misunderstanding the origins of behavior or feelings.

Covariation Theory

To evaluate causes, you need more than one instance of behavior to check if others behave similarly, if the person behaves that way in other situations, and if they always behave that way in the same situation

Correspondence Theory Factors

Questions considered when judging causes include: freedom of choice, normativeness/social desirability, social role, number of effects, and number of causes

Discounting Principle

If a behavior seems to have more than one possible cause, people tend to refrain from making a causal attribution

Correspondence Bias

The tendency to attribute behaviors to a person's traits/beliefs even when there is strong situational evidence. People assume behavior corresponds to an underlying disposition

Jones and Harris (1967)

Experiment showing correspondence bias; participants inferred a speaker's true attitude from an essay, even when the position was assigned.

Reducing Correspondence Bias

Perspective-taking and accountability are two factors that can reduce this bias

Perspective-Taking Training

Subjects who received training were less likely to assume a writer's attitude matched an assigned essay position

Attitudes

Summary evaluative judgments of psychological objects, e.g., good/bad. Can be automatic or deliberative, implicit or explicit

Attitude Objects

Social issues, individuals, social groups, products, or issues

Mere Exposure Effect

The more you see something, the more you like it.

Expectancy Value Model

Attitudes form from beliefs (expectancies) about an object and evaluations (values) of those beliefs. Attitude = Sum of (Expectancy * Value) for relevant outcomes

Attitudes vs. Behavior

Attitudes are often poor predictors of behavior because behavior has multiple causes

Multiple Causes of Behavior

Includes the attitude itself, social norms, other attitudes, the situation, habit, and physiology

Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger, 1957)

Attitudes and behavior can influence each other. Inconsistency between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors creates an unpleasant feeling (dissonance) that motivates resolution

Festinger & Carlson (1959) Forced Compliance

Classic experiment (with caveats) where participants lied about a task's interestingness for $1 or $20. Participants paid $1, experiencing more dissonance, rated the task as more enjoyable than those paid $20

Counter-Attitudinal Essay Paradigm

A common way to study cognitive dissonance; involves writing an essay that contradicts one's true attitude

Multi-Lab Replication

Found that writing a counter-attitudinal essay (vs. a neutral one) led to more favorable attitudes toward the topic, supporting dissonance theory. However, the perception of choice (high vs. low) did not significantly impact this attitude change in this study

Induced Hypocrisy Paradigm

Can change behavior by creating dissonance

How do people make inferences about causality and what information do they use?

Causal attributions assess whether behavior is due to internal traits or external factors, using situational cues like consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness

What experiments demonstrate that infants infer that people can have goals?

Woodward (1998) showed that infants expect actions to be goal-directed, as they looked longer when the hand reached for a new object

Explain the Woodward (1998) study and what it reveals about the information babies use to infer other people’s beliefs

Infants in Woodward (1998) expected the hand to continue reaching for the original object, suggesting they inferred a goal rather than random action

Explain the Sally-Anne test and how it can reveal what a person believes about another person’s beliefs

The Sally-Anne Test reveals if a person can understand false beliefs by predicting where Sally will look for her hidden marble after it’s moved without her knowledge. It assesses theory of mind by examining whether the participant comprehends that others can hold beliefs that differ from reality.

How do autistic children perform on the False Beliefs Test? How does the development of this belief differ for autistic kids and non-autistic kids?

Autistic children often struggle with the False Belief Test, indicating delayed development in understanding others’ mental states compared to non-autistic children

What are the major dimensions we use for characterizing people’s personalities based on their faces?

The main dimensions are Dominance, Trustworthiness/Approachability, and Attractiveness/Youthfulness.

If faces do not accurately predict trustworthiness, why do we make judgments of trustworthiness based on faces at all?

Despite low accuracy, we judge trustworthiness based on faces due to biases like perceived anger, which falsely signals untrustworthiness.

Understand and explain the attractiveness heuristic (i.e., 'beautiful is good').

The 'Beautiful is Good' heuristic leads to positive traits being attributed to attractive people, despite no correlation with competence or intelligence.

When are people most likely to make causal attributions, and how do they distinguish between situational vs. dispositional causes?

Causal attributions are most likely when behavior is unexpected, negative, or personally relevant; people distinguish between dispositional (traits) and situational (context) causes

How does the Covariation Model use consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness to explain behavior?

The Covariation Model uses consistency (does the person act the same way in similar situations?), consensus (do others act the same way?), and distinctiveness (is this behavior unique to this situation?) to determine causality.

What does the Correspondence model suggest that people take into consideration when deciding whether someone’s behavior was due to internal vs. external causes?

The Correspondence Model considers choice, social role, normativity, and number of effects/causes to determine if behavior is internally or externally motivated.

What is the Discounting Principle, and how does it affect how we evaluate multiple potential causes for a behavior?

The Discounting Principle suggests that when multiple potential causes are present, each cause is given less weight, making it harder to pinpoint a single cause.

What does the Game Show study tell us about the correspondence bias and role-based judgments?

The Game Show study demonstrated correspondence bias, as observers perceived the questioner as more knowledgeable, ignoring the situational assignment of roles.

How did Tetlock’s essay study demonstrate that accountability can reduce attribution errors?

found that accountability reduced attribution errors, as participants expecting to explain their reasoning were less likely to commit correspondence bias.

What defines an attitude in psychological terms, and how do Mere Exposure studies demonstrate unconscious attitude formation?

An attitude is a summary evaluation (e.g., good/bad, pleasant/unpleasant) of a psychological object; Mere Exposure studies show that repeated exposure increases positive attitudes unconsciously.

Why don’t attitudes always lead to behavior, and what other variables (like social context or motivation) matter?

Attitudes don’t always predict behavior due to situational factors, social norms, conflicting motivations, and other external variables.

What does Festinger & Carlsmith’s $1 vs. $20 study show about cognitive dissonance and insufficient justification?

Festinger & Carlsmith’s study found that participants paid $1 to lie experienced more dissonance and justified their actions by altering their attitudes, unlike those paid $20 who felt justified by the larger reward.

How does the Induced Hypocrisy Paradigm create dissonance, and what did the COVID study show about combining advocacy with self-reflection?

The Induced Hypocrisy Paradigm creates dissonance by having participants advocate for a behavior and then recall a past failure to enact it; the COVID study showed that combining advocacy with self-reflection increased compliance with guidelines.

What are the ways people resolve cognitive dissonance according to theory, and how do concepts like perceived choice and external justification influence the strength of dissonance?

People resolve dissonance by changing attitudes, altering behaviors, minimizing importance, or seeking external justification; perceived choice and external justification can intensify or reduce dissonance.

stereotype

A generalized belief or expectation about a group of people that often leads to oversimplified perceptions and judgments.

prejudice

gut reaction towards the group, could be positive or negative

Lens Model

explains how we use different clues (e.g., facial expressions, tone, body language) to interpret someone’s feelings or thoughts. Some cues are more clear and accurate while others are more ambiguous and harder to interpret

Wisdom of Crowds Effects

Individual judgments are often biased or inaccurate, when judgments are combined, estimates can cancel out errors leading to more accurate judgments

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Measures implicit biases (automatic responses) to things such as racial biases

Weapons Identification Task

Identifies bias in perceiving tools vs weapons based on race cues (shows a white or black person), Black faces are more likely to misidentify tools as weapons

Results of Weapons Identification Task

Participants were faster to identify weapons after seeing Black faces and were more likely to misidentify tools as weapons

Garbage In, Garbage Out

It means that if the initial information used to form a stereotype is inaccurate or biased, the resulting stereotype will also be flawed.

In-group bias

positive feelings toward those in our group, negative feelings, unfair treatment for those not in our group